The present invention relates to a golf club cover and more particularly to the golf club cover of the type of a pair of generally identical rigid shells hingedly secured to each other, as opposed to "soft" golf club covers such as disclosed, for instance, in Canadian Pat. No. 522,497 issued Mar. 6, 1956 to Halter, or in Canadian Pat. No. 660,831 issued Apr. 9, 1963 to Mesinger. Prior art related to golf club covers comprised of two hinged, rigid half-shells is typically represented by U.S. Pat. No. 2,508,525 issued May 23, 1950 to Lefevre, and by U.S. Pat. No. 3,117,609 issued Jan. 13, 1964 to Pio.
The last two mentioned U.S. patents present a trend in the art of golf club covers, directed to replace pliable, soft covers with a hard shell that would effectively protect the head of a golf club against scratching and other mechanical damage when the golf club is not in use. If the golf club cover is to be of the type of a rigid shell, it is unavoidable to design the cover such that it is comprised of two more or less identical halves hingedly secured to one another. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,508,525, the hinged securement is effected by a spring-urged hinge near the tip of a bulbous head covering portion of the cover. It is believed that the arrangement is disadvantageous particularly due to the fact that if the golf club cover is being placed over the golf club, the hinge has to be grasped and maintained in an open state, against the action of the spring. The spring in the hinge is obviously also effective as means for maintaining the cover in a closed state. Such kind of hinge is believed to be disadvantageous in that the need for forcing the two halves into an open state against the action of the hinge spring fully occupies one hand of the user thus making the placement of the golf club head within the cover relatively cumbersome. Moreover, the hinge arrangement near the tip of the bulbous head portion of the cover presents a protruding portion which may easily become damaged or may itself cause scratching or the like damage to the remaining golf clubs in a golf club bag.
It is therefore believed that the type of the rigid cover as described in the Pio patent is more advantageous not only due to the location of the hinge which is coextensive with the back of the shank portion of the cover, but also due to the fact that it allows for opening of the cover and retaining the cover in an open state without the need for forcing the two halves apart to maintain them in an open state.
It has further been established that despite the knowledge of hard shell covers for golf clubs, the covers did not find a broad application among the golfers, despite obvious advantages of such covers over the soft pliable sock-type covers. It is known that many golfers having tried the hard shell covers eventually switched back to soft pliable cover for all kinds of reasons, beginning with cumbersome operation of the covers to the fact that golf club heads may deteriorate within a hard shell cover due to its tendency of retaining moisture within the shell.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide further improvements of the art of golf club covers generally of the type as described in the above U.S. Patent to Pio.